PixelatedGeek

We Speak Geek

I'm 29 and live in Greensboro, North Carolina. There, I teach English (mainly composition and Shakespeare) at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I moonlight as a dungeon master who currently runs two campaigns in the same world. Every weekend, I perform improv comedy at a professional improv club in downtown Greensboro. My top three favorite things are: pie, cats, and sandwiches. If you can somehow combine all three and not hurt the kitties, I'll be your best friend forever.

If you’ve been following the site for the past few days, you have probably noticed all of the SW: TOR content that we discovered at PAX East. I wanted to give you some quick first impressions of the game. In short, the game has resurrected my interest in MMOs. I know for sure I will purchase this game upon release (whenever that may be, BioWare) and sink many otherwise unproductive hours into it. The controls are standard MMO fare with absolutely no surprises. The graphics are what you would expect from BioWare: realistic facial expressions, sharply intriguing camera angles, and fully developed worlds and environments. What is going to set this MMO apart, however, is the story-driven landscape. Naturally, it is at its heart a BioWare game set in the Star Wars universe; even though a community rep admitted that it is an MMO first, SW: TOR will feature an intricately woven plot into intense MMO gameplay. One unique feature displayed (and unfortunately during a tutorial screen and thus, un-filmed) involved how BioWare reconciled its phenomenal role-playing features with that of the combat-driven MMO. When raid members are asked questions by NPCs, they are given choices (the good ol’ response wheel), and dice are rolled to determine who gets to speak when. It rolled smoothly and added multiple characters’ opinions and attitudes toward story features and events. While maintaining classic MMO tendencies, BioWare concentrates heavily on the “RPG” half of the game-changing genre. Read on to catch an official release date from a rep from BioWare Austin.